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But the inscrutability only ensues from the pestilential touch of modern thinking, which will only concern itself with God in the cosmic sense if it transcends the narrowest observation of the physical facts of this FREE WILL AND KARMA. 141 world at all. It is only occult teaching that introduces us to the links between humanity and absolute universal spirit—the cosmic God. We are coming into relations at this stage of the explanation with one of the sublimest mysteries of the spiritual plane, and I hope my readers will deal with the subject, and think of it, in an appropriate attitude of mind. But the fact is as I have just foreshadowed. Just as there are, undoubtedly, men far more highly endowed or evolved, both as regards goodness and power and faculty, than the generality of those around ts, so in Nature and in relation with this world there are spiritual beings of again far more exalted attributes. And the direct influence on the affairs of the world of some among these beings is a profound and wonderful truth. Of such beings we can obviously know but little beyond the fact that they exist, and beyond the obvious logical necessity for their existence in the great hier- archy of consciousness—of individualised spirit. But in the fact of their existence we may begin to discern the real truth at the bottom of the somewhat distorted popular conceptions concerning the providential govern- ment of the world. How far these spiritual Lords of Creation are directly concerned with carrying out the cosmic will in regard to those great uniformities of Nature which constitute the laws of matter, is a question we need not here investigate, but it is at once intelligible that they should direct with conscious intention the marvellous concatenation of events which constitute the laws of Karma. Of course, the ordinary mind is aghast at the 142 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. complexity of the problems to be dealt with, but physical science teaches us not to shrink from com- plexity as tantamount to improbability in our inter- pretations of Nature. The laws of the spiritual plane are not likely to be less complex than those of matter and multiplex telegraphy—not to seek for still more powerful illustrations in the laws of optics—will suffice to warn us not to reject as inconceivable activities in Nature that the human mind cannot imagine itself as following consciously in detail. At all events, the differences that exist between the laws of physical matter and the mysteries of human consciousness suggest, as an analogy, some different mode in which universal spirit should control the laws of matter and the incidents of life, which contribute to make up the justice of Karma. Somehow we may think of the former as provided for by some stupendous exercise of Creation or Divine Will in advance, so to speak, of the human drama to be enacted on that stage. Then, when the human drama begins, we may think of that Divine Will as focussed in some sort of exalted individual consciousness or consciousnesses, but scarcely less omnipresent than the other or fundamental stratum of the Divine Will. The problem, as a metaphysical problem for the human mind contemplating it, is a problem in the distribution of consciousness. The terrible limitations of the physical organism as an instrument of thought are such that, broadly speaking, an incarnate man is only able to think of one thing at a time. With practice, indeed, I believe that on the very threshold of that great process of evolution, which FREE WILL AND KARMA. 143 occultists call initiation, it is found that these limita- tions are not so rigid as most people think, and that it is possible to keep up more than one continuous train of thought simultaneously—and by that, of course, I mean something more than the power of jumping rapidly backwards and forwards among various trains of thought and recollecting each in turn, after the manner of a chess-player engaged on several games of chess at once. The distribution of consciousness required for a being conscious, so to speak—in Divinity —-and concerned with the control of Karma, is, again, something as transcendently greater than this simplest distribution, in degree, as the rapidity, for example of light waves counted by billions per second is greater than the rapidity of a pianoforte player’s execution. But from the power of thinking of two things at once to the power of thinking of two million would only be a question of degree. ‘To recognise the conceivability of the higher achievement is logically possible for the understanding. And this is all we have to recognise, in order to bring within the range of imagination the Karmic govern- ment of the world, as providing for the lateral play of individual Free Will. Any of us may now and then disturb the pre-existing Karmic plan with which, so far, we had been entangled. Let it be assumed, for example, that it lay within the Karma of A and B that they should be ruined and made to suffer much material discomfort by the (probable) act of C. But C has developed a moral sense, out-running that of his pre- vious incarnation by the exercise of his spiritual Free Will, and he misses his appointment with Karma, to FREE WILL AND KARMA. 145 put it that way. Then other arrangements have to be made, and A and B are provided with the suffering due in some other manner, and a great number of minor adjustments have to be carried out accordingly. But this is only a question of adequate capacity on the part of the governing power, and our hypothesis—or rather, the esoteric teaching concerning the actual state of the facts—recognises that adequate capacity as existing in the ‘‘ Providences’”’ of the world. The principle I have been endeavouring to explain in regard to the lateral play of Free Will during each physical life may be further elucidated with the help of a diagram (p. 144). In this figure the centre line A B represents the general direction of evolution for the race at large, and the small parallelograms represent a few individual lives. Taking the life a first, its place on the centre line shows that the Karmic impulses from the previous incarnation are in accordance with the normal tendency of the age. But the privilege of partial Free Will, which the person whose life is in question enjoys, enables him to modify the tendency of his individual evolution either to the right or the left, to the extent shown by the dotted lines. He cannot modify that tendency more than is shown by the dotted lines, for he is hemmed in by the limitations of Karma and circumstance, in so far as the side lines of his parallelogram restrain the diver- gence. Let us assume that the direction to the right is towards spiritual good—that to the left, towards spiritual evil. If the individual concerned makes the necessary efforts during the life, represented by a 146 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. his next incarnation has a general Karmic tendency in the direction of the centre line of the life b. Suppos- ing, again, efforts in the direction of the better spiritu- ality determine a further inclination of the centre line of life towards the right, then the third life of the series will be in the direction of c. And it will be obvious that a few more lives of similar effort will finally estab- lish the centre line of the life at right angles to the original centre line—as in the case of the parallelogram h, which may be taken to represent complete adeptship in harmony with the Divine idea of absolute good. But at every step of the process the Free Will of the individual is an uncontrolled agency in the matter, and it will be always possible before the complete perfection of the h life is attained that the individual in question may swerve in the wrong direction. Thus the energies of the life c may be misdirected, and give rise to a subsequent incarnation in the direction d, and one more wrong swerve in that case would bring back the Ego into the original main current of common- place evolution. At any stage of his progress along that centre line an evil swerve will take him in the left-hand direction, and determine a new life with its predominant bent towards evil, as in the casé marked /. And per- sistence in the evil tendency will, in a few lives, estab- lish the Ego on the horizontal centre line in the left hand direction, which may be taken to represent the course of absolute evil, which, like that of absolute good, disentangles an Ego from the main current of evolution altogether, under conditions dealt with in theosophical teaching. FREE WILL AND KARMA. 147 It will be seen that the general probability in regard to a great majority of lives—considering the complex tendencies of human nature—will be such that most Egos will swerve now to the right and now to the left in such a way that they continue in the main current of evolution. But to make the diagram a little more significant, we may suppose that the main centre line, A B, is not a straight line, but the arc of an enor- mous circle bending towards the right, so that in the great procession of the ages the great majority will be slowly borne round towards the direction of good— this tendency representing that general preponderance in the long run of the principle of good as compared with the principle of evil, nearly balanced as they often seem to be if we take short views of human affairs.